Winged Immortal, Maximum Ride Twilight Crossover
by supernerdy
Summary: Nudge is fatally injured in a surprise flyboy attack. There is no chance of keeping her heart beating, but perhaps she can still be saved. Takes place after FW & BD, thus spoilers. Flames welcome.
1. Flyboys

CHAPTER 1

Max POV

We were flying over whatever is west of the place we were before, which is north of where we were before that. Wow I pay great attention don't I? Anyway we were flying which is what matters, we were not trapped in a cage, an isolation tank or anywhere else against our free will, and we have been for four years.

My thoughts were interrupted by Fang hitting my over my head with his dark handso- I turned off my thoughts, but not fast enough. Angel was snickering, and whispering in Nudges ear.

Fang hit me over the head with his wing again. I sent him a questioning glare, to which he pointed at the horizon. I saw what he was looking at and gasped.

We had taken down most of Itex, but there were still a few small branches left that occasionally sent a few flyboys at us, but never that many.

Angel POV

I was still giggling in my mind. Fang and max were so perfect for each other, and they both loved each other, but they didn't think that the other one liked them back. It was almost getting annoying how oblivious they were.

Sigh. It's tough being the mind reader. Huh, Max just thought Itex. I tuned into her thoughts

"A few small branches left that occasionally sent a few flyboys at us, but never that many."

And I saw the dark blobs on the horizon in her mind.

Gazzy POV

"No" my sister said from below me. Everyone looked at her, except Fang and Max, who were looking with her at the horizon.

I heard Iggy gasp, and then I heard it too. The grinding gears of a whole lot of flyboys. Awwe maaaan, we hadn't seen them in a month, and even then there were only ten, this time there had to be at least 200.

As a bonus, there was nowhere to run to, and no stream to jump in.

"We're gonna have to fight" Max declared.

We spread out and went into fighting stances. They were only a little ways a way now. I reached into my backpack and pulled aside the fake bottom, revealing my stash of bombs.

Even in a situation like this I still had to chuckle to myself, Max has been trying to find these bombs for years.

I threw a small one at the nearest flyboys. Sometimes I wonder what the town below us is thinking, like "don't those hooligans know that the 4th of July isn't for two months?"

I saw Max, Fang, Nudge, and Angel charge forward and start fighting. Max went with a customary round house kick, while Fang flew behind them to kick them at the base of the spine and short circuit them.

Angel was working with the three dimensions and flying above them to get a good shot at the head. I hope she doesn't get hurt, I would feel a lot better if she was able to play mind puppet with these guys.

Speaking of weird powers, Nudge was using her magneticness to unscrew the bolts connecting the flyboy's head to the rest of their body.

The flock seemed to be OK, so I flew over to Iggy to help him with our favorite group activity: blowing things up.

Nudge POV

Hah! This is working great! I focused the power through my hand and willed the little piece of metal to turn to the left. I felt it move, and the flyboy fell like a rock, well actually not quite like a rock. Rocks aren't usually so noisy.

I turned around and faced my next attacker applying the same strategy. Things were going great, we were creaming these guys, well not literally, oh, but wouldn't it be cool if we could like actually cream these guys? Like you know, get this humungo blender and fly towards it, but at the last second pull away so they all flew in and we could put the lid over them, trapping them in? That would be so awesome!

_Focus; there is a flyboy behind you_. Angel sent into my mind.

Why, by golly there was! What are the odds? I stuck out my hand and felt familiar tingling pull against my fingers, and the flyboy went down. Huh, that's weird, is it moving its arm? I thought most there circuits were in there head. Is that a tranquilizer?

Max POV

Why do the wolf/people robots made by evil scientists always target me?

I was fighting three, and just barely. I gave an unexpected (to them) extra stroke with my wings, and arced over the flyboy in front of me, before pulling in my wings and diving.

On my way down I struck my foot out hitting the base of its spine. I heard a good, hearty, crack noise and the 'bot started falling. I put my wings back out, and with the momentum of the kick I flipped myself around and drove the toe of my combat boot into the next flyboy.

I pulled myself upright, flapping my wings hard. I heard I tree branch snap in the distance, with the weight of a flyboy hitting it.

I heard Nudge let out a little squeak in the background, but couldn't give it much attention, as one of Gazzy or Iggy's bombs exploded above me.

I gave an extra hard stroke with my left wing to propel myself to the right, and avoided the cascade of wires and microchips.

"Nudge!" I heard Angel shout, but again, didn't get time to think about it before getting punched in the head. My brain scrambled and I lost track of where to punch.

Up and to the right, the voice spoke into my head. Thanks Jeb, I thought back, and landed a quick snap kick.

I dropped a few feet, then snapped up behind him and put a good kick into his tail bone. He seemed to hang in the air a moment before he started to fall.

I looked around for my next opponent, but realized the 30 left were retreating.

"Report" I shouted looking around. None of them were there.

They are on the ground with Nudge. Thanks again, wait, what happened to Nudge?

She fell. The voice responded. Before he even said it I was speeding towards the ground. When he did say it, I switched into super speed.

Nudge POV

I saw the dart shoot out of the gun, and I dropped and darted to the right. A sharp sting in my left arm told me I wasn't successful.

I (unfortunately) have had enough experience with tranquilizer darts to know that I had around 20 seconds before I would go unconscious.

I immediately tucked in my wings while counting in my head 1...2... Oh god I was going really, really, fast. This is what Max must feel like while doing super speed.

10…11… hmm I need to slow down in 3…2…1… I was streamlined, going head first, and spread out my wings while slowly pulling myself parallel to the ground.

I think I was 25 feet up when everything went black.


	2. Secrets and mindreaders

CHAPTER 2

Fang POV

Wow. This was bad.

"I think we need to take her to a hospital" Angel said, and Iggy who was analyzing the damage agreed.

Max crash landed a few feet away and came running over.

"Oh my god, what happened? How is she?" She exclaimed, panic at the edge of her voice.

"Broken right wing, arm and two ribs, she was hit with a tranquilizer dart and landed hard on her right." Gazzy said while he ran his fingers over a deep gash on her left shoulder.

He glanced at the tree above us and added, "Looks like she also hit the tree on the way down"

Max looked shocked but immediately regained her composure.

"Iggy see what you can about the breaks, Fang go get a good stick set her arm against, Gazzy start tearing up some shirts for bandages, and Angel see if there is a hospital nearby." Her voice cracked at the end as her eyes darted back to nudge. I don't think anyone but me noticed.

Angel was already flying off, and I went over to the tree Nudge hit. In seconds I found a long strait branch and raced back to the rest. It was hard not to show emotion when I got back, seeing Nudge broken and bloody lying on the ground.

I've known her my entire life. She was sort of like a younger sister to me, a noisy younger sister, but still.

Iggy had grabbed the stick from me and was wrapping it to her arm with the remains of my only long sleeve shirt, Max had taken another pile of shapeless rags and was pressing it against the gash, and Gazzy was holding her feet up to keep the blood going to her head.

I went and got the backpacks to place under her feet so Gazzy could take a break. He backed off, looking like he was concentrating hard on something.

"Angel found a hospital and is heading back; she says we need to find a way to get Nudge there."

Just then Angel landed in front of us, skidding to a halt. She looked at Iggy with a slight smirk that he didn't see, just before he volunteered to carry Nudge there.

Max POV

We pulled to a break at the Forks hospital. Huh, so that's where we were.

We went running in and I put on some fake tears. Okay so maybe they weren't so fake but I could have held them back.

I went up to the front desk and started blubbering one of my famous on-the-spot lies.

"We-we were playing in the w-woods and she fell from this tree, and - and it's my fault! I dared her to climb it, and please miss you've got to help!" *Shudder* I hate playing the nervous wuss girl.

"Where are you parents?" The lady asked. Uh-oh hmm how 'bout eaten by sharks? They're astronauts and got lost on their way to the moon?

Angel saved the day with the typical "You don't care where they are and you don't need to know" mind-puppeting.

"Okay, actually I don't care where they are and I don't need to know, now are you guys family or friends?" she replied.

Angel answered again but I could tell she wasn't being controlling 'cus she was playing a more "innocent, scared, sad little six year old" role.

"This is my big sister and brother, Max and Jeff" she said gesturing to me and Iggy

"I'm Ariel and that's my other brother Zephyr" She said pointing to Gazzy and herself.

"And that's Jeff's girlfriend Tiffany-Krystal, and her half-brother Nick." At this she raised an eyebrow and smirked at Iggy before pointing to Nudge and Fang.

The desk-person gave us a weird look, but after a second said "Okay, follow me."

Carlisle POV

Many placed into my position would call this employment drudgery. Not only though, do I truly enjoy the position I work, but it defies the monster I would have been, had I not toiled so hard to mask it.

I entered the room and was surprised to see six children. I was quickly distracted from this by the girl that they must be here because of.

She had bruises and cuts covering her, as did all of them for that matter, but the most prominent of her injuries were the deep gashes on her shoulder. If blood still had an effect on me this would surely have revealed me.

The girl's blood was spread over all of the six children. She had lost quite a substantial amount. The youngest child lightly brushed her fingers over the girl's arm, and I noticed for the first time that her ulna was broken.

Then my eyes wondered to her broken ribs, then again to the blood. It reminded me too clearly of the night I found Rosalie; at the point the only thing that could save her was the venom that condemned her. Condemned her to the life of a monster, a vampire.

The small girl looked at me with an odd expression that she appeared to be attempting to conceal. Surprise, or determination possibly; only Jasper would know for sure.

"I-is she gonna be ok?" she asked. Could I bear to tell the child that her sister had very little chance of life? That with the amount of blood, and her injuries only a true miracle could save her from death? I kneeled down to her eye level.

"We can try, but she has lost a lot of blood." She looked down and then back at me,

"Can I talk to you alone please?" What would this girl need to speak to me about, outside the ears of her siblings?

This girl though, I felt sorry for her though. I could tell by her barely suppressed tears that she and the dying girl had been close.

"Sure" I replied to her and led her down the hall to an empty room.

"Can anyone hear us in here?" she asked. This was going a tad far; there was little that could be said by such a young person that would need to be blocked from all ears. However this room was secure so I nodded my head.

Suddenly the masked determination I had seen became prominent on her sweet features.

"I know you are a vampire, and as soon as you examine Tiffany you will see that we are not human either. If you don't tell on us, we won't tell on you. You really think she is going to die. If she really is going to, you have to change her like you did to Rosalie. You don't get what it will do to the flock for her to die. We have been tortured, miss-treated, tested on, abused, tricked and abandoned, but this will destroy us. None of will be the same as we were before. All of us will accept a monster as an alternative to death. Besides we have never been normal."

With this she shook out a pair of beautiful white wings, and jumped out the window.


	3. Dead

CHAPTER 3

Iggy POV

Nudge was dying. Nudge was dying and I was sitting behind a hospital with a bunch fidgety mutants waiting for a six year old mind reader to join us and explain what's going on. Today just kept getting better and better.

I heard a window on the second floor open and a gasp from the person inside. She had showed the doctor her wings? She had better have an explanation.

Then I was distracted as someone with vision would be by a bright light. Max's shout made me jump about a foot in the air.

"I get it! Shut the heck up!" I heard everyone shift to stare at her, then heard her start mumbling something about "stupid voice… says go with the flow one more… so annoying… not going with the flow… save the world…blah, blah, blah…"

Well Angel found a good way of breaking the strained silence.

"Okay so the doctor is a vampire, and he thinks Nudge is dying but someone can be changed into a vampire when they are nearly dead and be saved so I told him that if it was the only option he would have to do that." Wow, did she sound like Nudge or what? Hey wait, vampire?

Gazzy POV

This is so not the time for Angel to be joking, and she had to be because she can't be tricked if she can read their minds, right?

Fang POV

Huh?

Max POV

If someone was able to trick her into thinking that, they must know she can read minds, so they must know who we are, and they have Nudge. Oh-no.

What if she is telling the truth, Max? Yeah right voice, a vampire doctor, besides if there was such a thing how could he be out during the daylight?

That's just a myth, the voice stated at the same time Angel responded to the same question, "Myth."

"Angel did the doctor have you take any medicine or something?" I asked her. Angel seemed to get a little ticked at this.

"I'm telling the truth, believe it or not, it is true, and if for some reason I am mistaken, or have been drugged" she sent a glare at me that looked odd on her cute little face, then her expression turned sad, "then Nudge will die."

She said the last part in such a quiet voice that I barely heard her, and I saw a tear leak from her eye. I went over and hugged her close to me, trying to completely block the word vampire out of my mind.

Angel POV

I couldn't even process completely what has happened so far. I mean, I've faced a lot of strange things, but even with the proof in my thoughts, it was hard to accept. Nobody believed me, but they didn't have to.

They just had to trust me enough to let me try to save Nudge. I broke free from Max's hold and looked her in the eye.

"We have to go back in, and you have to trust me okay? Just go with the flow." Oh man Max was going to kill me. She had heard that, like, a hundred times and it was driving her crazy.

I forced myself to think of Nudge to keep from laughing and with a much more solemn expression on my face I led my flock back in.

Helen Nale POV

I looked up from my magazine as the hospital door opened again. Those strange kids entered, I couldn't put my finger on it but there was something that wasn't right about them. Oh well, I went back to the magazine and flipped through the pages until I found a nice logic puzzle. Ugh it was a Sudoku. I was hoping it was a word search like last week.

I sighed and started filling in the numbers. It wasn't like I was bad at these; I just didn't like them very much. Suddenly I was distracted by a shout from down the hall.

"No! She can't be! No!" Then I saw the source of the noise, the five kids were being escorted out Dr. Cullen. By the looks of it, the girl they had brought in didn't do so well. Poor things, the youngest looked only ten years old, and the girl, Tiffany-Carol was it? She had only looked only about sixteen.

The young girl caught my attention again. There was something strained seeming about her tears. She peeked out between her fingers and looked at me. There was nothing weird about her crying, it was absolutely normal, a normal reaction for a little girl who had just lost a good friend. It would make her feel happier though if I offered her one of the lollypops on my desk. I reached forward and picked a butter scotch one; because that's the flavor she would like the best.

"I'm so sorry" I said to her as I gave her the candy. "Thank you" she said in tear strained voice. Odd the oldest girl shot the younger one a glare. Nothing is odd, everything is normal and I am going to continue with my Sudoku. I pulled out the magazine and continued filling in numbers.

Gazzy POV

Angel may be my only blood relative, but Nudge was family. Was… Just like she _was_ annoying, _was _talkative, _was _like a best friend. My sobs got louder as we exited the hospital. Everybody was crying; even Fang appeared to be a bit, though I could be mistaken.

We started walking faster towards the back woods, and when we had gone a few yards into the forest we all stopped. "I'm so sorry. " Angel said.

"But it was the only way, we had to put on a good show and, well, I couldn't risk you knowing. She is alive but-"she stopped abruptly looking at Iggy, Max, and Fang. Her expression was afraid, as if she was getting screeched at it, and was afraid it would turn into physical pain.

I couldn't believe she had lied. Not about something this big, fully knowing how much pain it was going to cause us. A small part of my brain understood, though. Apparently by Angel's steady tears, the rest of the flock's mental rants weren't so understanding or quiet.

All of a sudden, Angel let out a small squeak, and fell to her knees with her arms over her head, mumbling "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" between sobs.

I knelt down beside her and hugged her to me, and allowed the part of my brain that understood why she did it to take full conciseness. She did it so Nudge wouldn't really die. I glared up at the rest of my family, Angel still bawling into my shirt.

"Don't you get it? She just saved her! What if something went wrong and someone expected something strange? It had to be real." My voice got suddenly quieter. "Just stop yelling at her."

Max's expression immediately softened, Iggy's started looking a little less infuriated, and, well… Fang's just stayed impassive.

Carlisle POV

As soon as I had the children outside, I took off; traveling around the building and through the open window, faster than the human eye could follow. I gently gathered the injured girl in my arms, and carried her to where the thoughts the girl had sent into my mind had told me to go.

She seemed very much like both Edward and Renesme. But of course, were nothing like either. If the proof had not been thrust before me, without a loop whole in it that my mind could detect, I would never have imagined the existence of such a creature. But without so clear proof as I have been also given of vampires, I would have never conceived them possible either.

As I approached the woods I was pulled from my thoughts by the mind reader's agonized sobbing, then her brother's defense. Any doubt I had let abide in my thoughts, on whether or not to rid this innocent child of her soul and mortality were cast aside.

Every word the girl had spoken to me was true. This group here would suffer as much as my family would, if ridded of a companion. I could not inflict that pain on my worst enemy, let alone this group standing before me.

Angel POV

My mind was still on fire with their thoughts. I should have never done it, I should have told them! But what if someone could tell? That lady behind the desk noticed that my tears were off. It would have been near impossible to convince her to go back to that puzzle if all of us had been faking it. She had a strong mind. The lie was probably worth it though. I could deal with the pain.

Carlisle had at least stayed true to his thoughts. I had told him mentally the entire plan. We had to get Nudge out of there so no one else would discover what we are. Apparently I'm like someone named Renesme.

I winced. Iggy had just thrown another ugly thought in my direction. I focused harder on tuning him out. I then turned to talk to Carlisle; he had just gotten back from checking out of work at the hospital. "How do you get to your house? We will meet you there." I winced as he called me "the girl" again in his thoughts.

"By the way, my name is Angel, and this is Max, Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy" I said gesturing to them. I started listening to his thoughts.

**Odd names, Angel makes sense, and Max is a normal 20****th**** century name, if she was a boy. Gazzy? Probably better off not knowing. I suppose they fly with their wings, it appears the DNA was grafted directly into their stem cells so other attributes of their anatomy must be also altered to support flight. 16 miles to the North East if this is the case, if not I suppose-. **

"Thanks, see ya there" I said and motioned for the rest of my family to follow me into the air.


	4. Vision

**Thank for the reviews guys. Praypray, you have a point. I'm going with that Nudge is really unlucky, or the flyboys were targeting her because of her power, and that the rest of the flyboys ran away when they realized they were getting owned. Anyway here's the next chapter, enjoy!**

**Hmm… let me check my "books I've published list." Nope, no Maximum Ride or Twilight, dang I could've sworn I saw 'em there yesterday.**

CHAPTER 4

Edward POV

Renesme ran towards me giggling and holding a large bouquet, Bella trailing at a human speed after her. She jumped into my arms and placed her hand to my face, showing me myself holding the flowers.

We were at my clearing, now one of Renesme's favorite places. Jacob was at a pack meeting, one of the few things that could pry him from my daughter. I took the flowers from Nessie and hugged her in thanks.

"Here why don't you take this one to your mother" I told her as I placed her on the ground, and slipped a large daisy into her hand. She skipped off towards my wife, her thoughts in complete bliss. She has grown at triple the human speed. At two years old she had a fairly full vocabulary though she rarely ventured to make use of it.

Renesme placed her hand to Bella's forehead, showing her me giving her the flower, before handing the same flower to her. Bella smiled and started to braid the long stem into Nessie's curly hair. The cell phone in my pocket rang, and curious, I flipped it open.

"Edward?" Carlisle's voice on the other line questioned.

"The one, and only" I responded with a laugh.

"There are some kids heading to the house, there not human, and they're not vampires. They are friends, and I have agreed to help him." I could here in his voice that he wasn't positive what he was doing was helping."One of them has been fatally injured, I have agreed, if necessary, to save her."

"How did they know what we are?" I quickly responded. Bella and Nessie shot a questioning look in my direction.

"The youngest of them can read minds… and more… I will tell you the rest later, please just greet them at the house, and explain what I have to you to the rest. Take care, and make them feel welcome" Carlisle stated before hanging up.

Rosalie POV

I was in the garage working on my beloved red convertible. If I had to choose between the car, and the husband that was propping it up, I would definitely have to go with the car.

I worked quickly, fixing the tire I had popped yesterday. I had been working under the hood, and the car spat oil all over my new turquoise blouse. I kicked the wheel in revenge, and here we are.

I tightened the last bolt, and then stepped to the side, motioning for Emmett to put the car down. I noticed in the cars side mirror that my hair had been messed up. I was still examining myself when Emmett taped me on the shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts and pointing to a scratch I hadn't noticed on the side. I walked over to the shelf, and was reaching for the red paint, when Alice's shout coming from inside made me jump about a foot in the air.

"WHAT THE HECK?!" I spun around and darted inside behind Emmett. Alice was sitting on the couch in the living room with a book on her lap. Jasper was next to her, but was most likely was seconds ago at the forgotten chess game in the corner. Jasper was tense from the room's emotions, and Alice was rubbing her temples.

"There was a girl, about 16 years old. She was lying on our couch, and she looked like she was in a great deal of pain. A boy, looking only a little older than her comes running through the door." Alice nods her head towards the back door, "and runs strait to her." I could tell the big part was still coming. "The boy... he um well… he has... he had wings…" There was a stunned silence, I was truly impressed. This was defiantly not something I had been expecting.

Renesme POV

The world blurred past me as my mom ran, I in her arms. I could run faster than a human, but not quite at her speed. Nor did I have the mind to process it.

Daddy had gotten a call, from Grandpa Carlisle, no doubt. You could hear the respect in his voice as he talked to him, and by the sound of it, somebody knew that us Cullen's weren't humans. I put my hand to my mother's sparkling face, showing her dad on the phone, asking Carlisle how they knew; question in my touch. She smiled down at me, but there was confusion in her features.

"We'll see, Renesme." Mom never called me Nessie; she was the only one of my family. I've never been sure why. Every time I ask about it Emmett mutters darkly about losing a bet, Jacob looks ashamedly at mom, who looks a little angry, but also like she would be blushing if she could. Everyone else just laughs. I was jerked back to reality as mom jumped over the creek near the house. Then my world solidified out of the blurs, as my mom stopped running. Looking to my left, I saw that dad had also stopped, looking curiously at the house. I listened, and was able to hear the last few words of what Auntie Alice was saying. "Has wings…" Mom and dad glance at each other before darting into the house.

Alice was holding her head, everyone else circled around her, disbelief and curiosity etched on their faces. Dad was gaping at them open mouthed, and mom looked like she was going to flip if someone didn't tell her what is going on. Alice told us about her vision. Could they be the same people Grandpa was talking about?

"Could they?" dad asked. Finally mom couldn't take it. "Okay, what was the phone call?" She asked, not attempting to mask her irritation. Dad chuckled, then recited what Carlisle had told him, removing all doubts from my mind that the people must the same.

Fang POV

"Are we there yet?" Nudge asked. I waited to hear the thwack of Max hitting her over the head with her wing. Hearing nothing I looked down at the rest of the flock. Everyone was glaring at Gazzy in a sort of sad, but also amused way.

Oh, right.

"It just seemed too quiet." He said softly, looking at the cloud passing below us. Max, flying above him reached down and ruffled his hair.

"She'll be okay. Just one more mile, we're almost there." There was so much affection in those words. She wasn't just their leader; she was their parent, or the closest thing to one the younger kids may ever have to one. One minute turning flyboys into scrap metal, the next wiping away one of the younger kid's tears.

Max flew back to Iggy's side, looking at Nudge in his arms. No one but me could know how hard it was for her to suppress her tears, and not go into super speed, just to escape it all. No one but me and Angel.

_No one but me and you._ She sent into my mind. I looked down at her, now ashamed at how furious I had been, what I thought. If you have never lost someone really close to you, you could never understand how it feels. I sent an apologetic look in her direction, and then looked past her. There was a large white house in the middle of the woods. Had we flown a mile already?

"Down there." Said Angel, pointing, and we went into a descent.

Angel POV

I saw in Fang's mind the same house I had seen in Carlisle's.

"Down there" I said, before tucking in my wings, and angling down into a dive. I zoomed in on the house, with my sight and mind, and with both I located a very pretty girl with short black hair. Her thoughts went, fast, faster than Nudge's even. She must be another vampire. I caught small parts though, "**do have wings… six… poor girl… vision…**" I pulled out my wings, hovering about ten feet off the ground with the rest of the flock. The girl looked up at us, with a dazzling smile on her face.

"Come on in" she said in a voice sounding like wind chimes. Max didn't move so I didn't either.

"I'm not going to bite, you can come down." She let out a laugh as beautiful as her voice at the irony in her joke.

**Angel, is she a vampire? Gazzy thought in my direction**

_Yep,_ I sent back

**How can she be outside of her coffin? **There was something in his thoughts that made it sound like this was all in hypothetical terms. I guess I couldn't expect anyone to believe in something like a vampire without proof. Carlisle had thought about the "coffin myth", but there was something more to it that he wasn't thinking about. Most likely it had something to do with the fact that the vampire below me was very carefully avoiding the sunlight.

_Why don't you ask her?_

"No offense, but how come you're not in your coffin? It's daytime."

The girl laughed again, "myth"

I caught a few snippets of her thoughts again, "**Bella asked… onion… sparkle… sleep… diet….**"

"Can you come into the sun?" I asked her.

She sighed, a look of doubt on her face. Then brightened, as if hearing some encouragement I couldn't. She stepped out of the shade of the house. I felt my jaw drop. She looked like a living rainbow, the colors shining off her as if the light was traveling through a prism. She saw herself in her own mind, but it was different.

I took me a minute to realize what. Even with my raptor vision, I could only see seven colors in the light shining off her, she saw an eighth. I was pulled from her thoughts by the rest of the flock's, all of which were shouting with wonder. There was no doubt remaining.


	5. Treaty

**Ya, ya, I know this is late, but at least it's done now, right?**

**Thanks again to everyone who reviewed!**

**I double checked my list; Maximum Ride and Twilight are still not there.**

CHAPTER 5

Emmett POV

The door closed behind Alice, she had gone out to be the "welcoming committee" as Esme called it. I personally thought we should have sent Jasper out there, I had doubt that they would come into a house full of suspected vampires without a little encouragement. 'Hey Edward', I thought in his direction. He looked at me, his eyebrow raised. 'Want to make it a bet? 100 bucks they don't come in without some sort of reassurance.' He nodded his head very slightly and I grinned.

I heard the strong, powerful beating of large wings, and could smell both the human and bird scent in their blood. It was a strange smell, both appetizing and very slightly revolting; like Bella used to smell if she hung out with the werewolves before she came over. I craned my head to the side, trying to see out the front window without moving from my seat at the couch. Lucky Edward could just see outside through Alice's mind. He gave me a 'poor wittle Emmett' smirk.

"Come on in" Alice said to the newcomers from the front porch. The flapping continued, but got no nearer, oh yes, looks like I'm gonna win the bet! I sent Edward a smirk, his own having disappeared.

"I'm not going to bite, you can come down." Our welcomer continued. Oh, great time for jokes, definitely not what we were trying to remind these kids of at the moment. Edward seemed to be concentrating on something very hard, and outside the sound of beating wings was still distant.

A young boy's voice spoke up. "No offense, but how come you're not in your coffin? It's daytime." I covered my mouth with my hand to at least smother my laughs enough so that at least the kids wouldn't hear it. Rosalie shot me a glare, but it was marred by the fact that she also appeared to be having trouble refraining from giggling.

"Myth" Alice said, after laughing like I had nearly done (okay maybe not at such a high pitch, but at least that loud.)

"Can you come into the sun?" A young girl asked. Edward had an odd expression on his face. "Go ahead." He said, too low for the almost humans to hear.

I heard Alice take a few steps forward. Oh my god, she didn't. I heard gasps from the children. She did! So much for sending cheery, humanlike Alice out there to try to look normal. Well I still won the bet; this was a form of reassurance, showing them we were not so bad to deny what we are.

Edward looked shocked, but so shocked it couldn't be about the bet. He was staring slack jawed at the floor, as Bella and Nessie eyed him with a concerned expression. Jasper was getting a little twitchy; to be honest, it was a little amusing.

I heard three pairs of feet hit the ground, the first two very light, probably the youngest, and the last fairly heavy, also not as graceful.

The young girl spoke again, "If they were going to hurt us I, of all people would know." She must be the mind reader. I heard two more landings, and six sets of footsteps coming towards us, the last two to land in front, the heaviest footfalls in the back.

I was able to see them through the window now. In front was a tall girl, probably 19, shortly behind her an even taller boy, most likely the same age. Following them closely were the two youngest, the girl looking too innocent to have such a dark power. Edward raised an eyebrow at me and mouthed 'dark power?' I sent him a 'ya think?' look and he shrugged.

The last of the mutant procession passed into view. It was now apparent that the weight of his steps was caused by the person he was carrying – a girl, clearly unconscious, her wings loosely out behind her, and blood soaking the left side of her body. They passed out of view of the window, then in through the door, Alice following in behind them. I got up from the very couch Alice had seen in the vision, and offered it to the girl.

Angel POV

I had been so focused on the girl that was outside I didn't notice how many others there were until I was in the room with them. All their minds moved fast, but not as fast as our greeter. I rotated between their thoughts, lingering on the youngest girl. She looked even younger than I was! Her thoughts were slower than the others, and I could almost catch some sentences.

"… **youngest is like dad with… they are the same… poor girl… one of us**… **Jake will get back… Jake… pack… Jake… treaty… change girl… uh oh…" **She then pressed her hand to the chin of the man next to her. From the point her hand touched his face their thoughts the same, both seeing… A group of wolves? Really big wolves, we're talking six feet tall at least. Then there was a picture of a girl around Max's age. She had dark brown hair and blood streaked across her face. She looked familiar. She was quickly replaced by the picture of a boy, he looked Native American, and was most likely the same age but much taller. Then another girl… no it was the same girl. That's where I recognized her from, all three were the same. The third being the girl on the couch to the little girl's left.

That's when the resemblances hit me, the little girl in the center, and the adults on either side. The copper hair that was shared and the brown eyes I had seen in the vision. They were a real family, a family of freaks, but still a family. I remembered again with a pang that my parents both sold me, and had died in a car crash along with the younger sister I never knew I had. The flock and I found this out two years ago.

The father and daughter's thoughts continued on with the slide show, the picture switching from their mother / wife to Nudge lying down on the couch. Then there was a picture I was sure neither of them had seen before. It was Nudge again, but she was different, but still very similar. Just as the bleeding girl and the same girl later in the vision were different, but still similar. Nudge had eyes so red they appeared to be glowing, and her skin had faded to almost the same white color as the vampires in the room. I suppose it was darker there, because it was darker to begin with.

I was still studying the picture when it suddenly ended, the little girl's hand off her father's face. The father was giving me a quizzical look, so I tuned into his thoughts. "**So I tuned into his thoughts. So I tuned into his thoughts. I tuned into his thoughts. Tuned into his thoughts…" **

It was repeated back and forth, like an object between two mirrors that were facing each other. I wrenched my thoughts away from his, and then stared at him, struggling to do so only physically and not mentally. There was only one reason I could come up with for this to happen. Could he read minds too? He nodded. The flock stared at us, finally having something to look at. Until that moment the only movement that had taken place was the mind reader's daughter moving her hand.

We all looked at each other, waiting for someone else to break the silence. No one did. It was silent, but of course only physically. My flock's thoughts were in worry about Nudge, or curious about vampires or the mental conversation. I flipped through the vampire's minds too, catching a few snippets about Carlisle, Nudge, venom, and occasionally some other names I didn't recognize. I tried to make myself slightly aware of all their thoughts, although blocking out the other mirror's, waiting again for one of them to think a name. Every time they did I pounced on their mind, searching for an accompanying image to the person.

It gave me a slight head ache to have so many thoughts moving so fast, but after a minute I had found each of their names. The mind reader was Edward, his daughter was Renesme (the girl I was said to be like), and his wife was named Bella. Emmett and Jasper had been sitting on the couch, Rosalie and Esme were sitting on the two chairs in the corner, and our greeter's name was Alice.

I mentally relayed this information to each of the flock, each of them giving me a slight look of thanks before going back to standing in silence. I was suddenly reminded of that "awkward silence turtle" Nudge would make by putting her hands on top of one another and rotating her thumbs in little circles like it was swimming.

I focused harder on the image of the turtle, and then sent it over to Gazzy. It worked, he burst out laughing. Everyone stared at him, vampires and humans (well 98%, it's the majority.) Gazzy made the turtle motion for the rest of the flock, and they started to laugh to. Well, most of them. Iggy glowered at Fang until he explained what was going on (for a blind guy, he was pretty accurate in aiming glares.)

The vamps' expressions suddenly switched gears, changing from confused to expectant. Shortly after Iggy stifled his laughter and looked curious. A car pulled up in front of the house, most likely containing Carlisle. Sure enough, he stepped out and came inside, carrying an armful of some different types of medicine and a few syringes.

"Sorry I'm late; I decided getting a few extra supplies would not be a waste of time. If you are truly sure this is what is best for her we should change her soon. I don't know how much longer she can last." As he finished he was watching Edward, who had taken on an odd, thoughtful expression. I risked a peak into his thought, but was able to catch nothing but the word treaty, which was repeated many times.

He looked up at Carlisle and spoke something so fast and low I couldn't hear it. Only Iggy and the vampire's thought full and troubled expressions assured me that it was probably not something good.

Edward POV

"We can't change her. What about the treaty?"

**PLEASE! Tell me what you think! Got an idea for what should happen? Great! Let me know. Have a recommendation for a POV I should use? Awesome! Think I should go look up the definition of plot in the dictionary then get myself a spell checker? Please, recommend a dictionary! I'd like 5 more reviews before I put up the next chapter.**


	6. Loop whole

**Thanks for the reviews folks! sayune-aburame and Ailit, I took your ideas into account for this chapter.**

CHAPTER 6

Esme POV

Edward was right. If everyone was saved from death the world would be a nightmare. But the girl on the couch, she was only a child! Couldn't they make an exception? The kids that were with her, they didn't trust anyone easily. They only reluctantly landed, even when they had no other option. But you could tell they would trust one another with their lives.

And the way they were always cautious, looking at the exits, never seeming to come out of fighting stances; appearing to have not bathed in at least a month, their beat up clothes and beat up selves. What had happened to them? What had they been put through? No healthy or happy child would look like this. Even werewolves couldn't be as coldhearted as to take another thing from them. I had a literal cold heart, and I wasn't that cruel.

"What time should Jacob get back?" The annoyance in Alice's voice was clear. She loved Renesme as much as I loved my little granddaughter, but having to ask other people about the future was hard on her.

"Twenty minutes or so." Bella said, not breathing in, and eying the blood coating the girl.

"When Jacob gets here we will talk to him about this. If he is so strongly against it that it may cause a fight, we will not take away her mortality." My Carlisle stated with a grim expression, Edward nodding assent before he had started talking.

"Why are we taking responsibility for this girl?" Rosalie hissed, "Carlisle has seen hundreds of people die at that hospital. Why should she be different? Why should we risk ourselves for her?"

"Rosalie," I beseeched in my most motherly voice. "Look at these kids; can't you see what they have been through? We could help them. If we have all the time in the world surly we can spare a little?"

"By creating the vampire we would take responsibility for whatever she did. We wouldn't be able to stop her if she _flew _off to go maim a village. And why should _we _have to control her? This makes no sense!" Rosalie whispered at the loudest point she could without the others hearing.

The tall child with strawberry blond hair turned to us.

"Because if you don't, we'll tell the world what you are." All of us gawked at him. My thoughts went slow as tried to process what he said. How did he hear us?

"We have really good hearing," The other mind reader explained. Well that cleared that up, but the threat there still remained. I would do all in my power, aside from provoking a war, to help them. But if we did what we could, they wouldn't expose us, would they?

"We'll do what we can." I said, just as Rosalie said, "you wouldn't dare!"

Rosalie POV

I was screaming in side. This was idiotic! Why should we change her, we didn't even know them until thirty minutes ago. And so what if they have been through a lot. There are people that work all day in terrible conditions, and then just die some from awful disease. They had families depending on them and desperate for them to stay alive. This happened every day! Why should these people be different? Why couldn't they see this?

Blindy had finally gotten around to answering.

"We would dare." He stared me nearly strait in the eyes. "You help us keep her alive; we help you remain a secret."

I was then distracted from him by the furry footfalls about a mile away. Great. Wolf boy. At least he would be on my side. The footsteps faltered for a moment, then began again, fainter and less fuzzy. All the vampires were now aware of him coming. Carlisle took the minute to catch the kids up.

"Vampires are not the only creature around here. There are also werewolves. There are certain rules that we obey by in order to reside here. We are not allowed to go on werewolf land, hunt humans, or change humans to vampires." The bird kids exchanged looks. "An exception was made for Bella, and we hope to persuade Jacob, a werewolf friend of ours, to allow another breach of the treaty."

Fang POV

Let's review. Nudge is injured, doctor turns out to be a mythical creature, Nudge has to become a mythical creature or die, and now ANOTHER mythical creature may not allow the 'operation' to happen. If someone told me that this was going to happen yesterday, I would have personally flown them over to the crazy house.

I heard foot falls on the patio outside. The back door opened and a really tall Native American guy came inside. He quickly crossed the room and took Renesme out of Bella's arms, not noticing anything else. He held her for a minute, and then froze.

He slowly turned around and faced us curiosity etched on his face. Renesme put her little hand to his forehead, and then watched as he turned paler and paler. He slowly faced us again.

"I'm sorry. I really am. I know it's hard to lose somebody. But making an exception for her and not for every other person that is dying wouldn't be fair. Bella was a special case that the treaty hadn't anticipated, but we can't just-"Jacob, as I now assumed he was, stopped, watching Iggy who was practically shaking. Actually, he was shaking a bit.

"So-so that's it. She's gone. Th-that's it then?" His voice remained quiet but there was an immense amount of fury and sorrow packed into it. Jacob didn't respond. Iggy's outraged expression started dwindling until he was staring blankly at the wall, face neutral.

In a sudden motion his expression broke, showing more emotion than I had ever seen on it, then he took off, running out the back door and into the sky. We all stared at Jacob, hating him, not only for what he was doing to Nudge, but for what that was going to do to the rest of us. Especially Iggy. Max spoke up, and although she kept her voice and expression calm, I could see the nervous breakdown and tantrum she was having inside.

"Is the problem just the treaty?"

The werewolf nodded, "basically."

"What _exactly _does the treaty say?" Max continued.

"The resident vampires of Forks Washington may not convert any human to an immortal." He stated; losing the discreet glaring contest he and Max were having.

"That is exactly what the treaty says?"

"Exactly what the treaty says."

Max could have thrown a round house kick at this guy and it wouldn't have surprised me. But what she did do, none of the flock expected. A huge smile burst out on her face.

"And as long as we don't break the treaty, there's no problem?" she clarified.

"Nope" he confirmed.

Max's grin got bigger, and she faced the vampires.

"Nudge isn't human."

I smiled too. There was no problem, Nudge would be OK. She would be different but she wouldn't be dead.

Jacob eyed us, trying to find something that would contradict what Max had said, but apparently he couldn't find a loop whole in her loop whole.

"Do you have anything against this Jake?" Bella asked.

"Not really, but you're cutting it really, really close on the treaty thing." He replied to her, scowling. Then his expression softened as he turned to Renesme, "A vampire bird kid, guess you aren't going to be the only one of a kind around now." She again put her hand to his face, and he laughed.

Carlisle, who had been seeing some medical mumbo jumbo on Nudge, straitened up and faced us.

"If you're sure this is what she would want for her, we will have to do it now." He was right; her blood was starting to take on a light pink tint.

"This is what is needed. It is our only choice." Max put on her leader role again.

He nodded, and then disappeared. A second later he was back where he was, a syringe full a clear liquid was in his hand. My adrenaline kicked in at the sight of it, and my breath began to go fast. I needed to get out of here. I didn't want to see this.

"I'll go get Iggy." I volunteered, fumbling with the door handle before yanking it open and jumping into the sky.

Iggy POV

I couldn't believe it – so I wasn't going to. I was going to just sit on the branch of this tree, just barely holding myself together and not thinking about what happened for the rest of my life. But no matter what else I tried to focus on, I just kept coming back to it. Nudge. Gone. I would now give anything to hear her incessant chatter. This was by far the worst day of my life, worse than the day Max found my plans for The Ultra Bomb, worse than the day those whack job scientists tried something with my lungs when I was six, and every breath was complete agony, worse even than the day I lost my sight. I could redraw the plans, my lungs healed, and my hearing got so much better that it almost made up for not being able to see anything. Nudge was gone forever. She was never going to find out that I cut up her favorite shirt to make a fuse. She was never going to figure out that I put the rat in her backpack and not Gazzy. I was never going to get to tell her I loved her… Never. I started punching the tree, anger welling up inside me then exploding outwards. I made huge dents in the bark, tearing up my knuckles more with every hit. At some point I stopped punching and just fell over backwards on the branch, hanging by my knees.

Fang found me then, swooping down and landing on my branch. I honestly didn't care.

"She is going to be ok." He said in his usual monotone. I flapped my wings enough to get me back on top of the branch. I stared at him. Okay, maybe I did care.

"What?"

"She is gonna live. The werewolf treaty only covers humans." He gave a flap of his wings for emphasis. I stared at him.

"They were just injecting her with the venom as I left." He finished. I was still staring at him blankly, but the gears in my brain were beginning to work. Nudge was mostly alive, and would be okay. Okay y'know that big huge depressing rant I had? No one saw it, it never happened. I flipped backwards over the branch, this time not hooking my knees. I extended my wings and took off back the way I had come. After about a minute I heard very slight sounds coming from below, and I dive bombed towards it. I ran up the steps, feeling my way and following the hushed voices from inside. I threw open the back door and ran strait to her, my wings still out behind me.

**Hmm, recognize that last seen from somewhere? Lets here it for the physic pixie! **

**Sorry that this chapter is so late, but hey, it had Niggyness! Anyway I would like five more reviews before I post the next chapter. I have some ideas about Nudge and vampire powers, but if you've got a suggestion I'd love to hear it! **


	7. Option C

CHAPTER 7

Iggy POV

I had barely moved from her side, and only then when I really had to. I have been sitting here for two days, just feeling her hand get colder and whiter. Max, Fang and Gazzy often joined me, but Angel and Edward kept their distance. It hurt just to be in her mind. Sometimes Alice came, but never for too long. She didn't like being away from Jasper for a long time, and he wouldn't even stay in the house for too long. The emotions of the flock and Nudge were driving him up the wall. Emmett, Carlisle, Bella, Renesme, and Esme often stayed too. Renesme seemed very attached to Nudge. I could understand why. They were both pulled into three different worlds. Renesme was half human, half vampire, and she was strongly connected to the werewolves. Nudge was human, bird, and vampire.

Honestly, the only two who would stay away when they had another choice were Jacob and Rosalie. I had no grudge against Jacob; I could see myself in his place when Ari was joining the flock, not accepting the new addition to my group, and choosing to avoid him. But Rosalie, for all I cared, could burn in H-E- double hockey sticks forever. She probably thought I couldn't hear her when she argued for Nudge's death; but heard every word she said. I hadn't spoken to her since.

According to Carlisle, a human would be through the most painful part of changing by now. His theory was that because of the nuclei in her blood, it was harder for the poison to travel through it. They had told us about vampires yesterday. I was curious if Nudge would have a power. If she did what would be? Edward and Jasper's powers seemed almost annoying for them. I couldn't remember what the others were, I had barely been listening.

All of their power's reflected their main attribute. Oh god, if Nudge had super talk I'd go crazy, in the literal sense of the word. Maybe she would have something cool. It would be nice for us to get a little bit of luck for once.

I heard the clomping of Max's combat boots and the scuffling of Renesme's tiny feet enter the room. The pair of them came and kneeled in front of the couch, like me.

"Iggy, something just occurred to us. Do you know what Renesme's power is?" Max asked. I could hear both wariness and glee in her tone. An odd combination… I shook my head no.

"She can send pictures into someone's mind through touch." She said, knowing she wouldn't have to say more for me to catch on. Which I did. I took Renesme by the wrist, and dragged her over to me, her knees sliding across the carpeted floor. I started babbling like an idiot, everything going through my mind pouring out. I would be able to see something! There were no words to describe it. If you are not blind (and unless this is being read aloud to you, you aren't) you cannot even imagine what it would feel like to, even for a short while, be able to have that sense available to you again (on something that isn't just white.)

A little hand was placed to my face, and a world came to life in my mind. I saw the objects, colors and textures I had felt, and had only been able to imagine. She was showing me what was happening right now. She was there, holding her hand against my ear, and Max with her arm around her. Max looked basically how I had always pictured her; she hadn't changed much, just gotten taller. I also looked like I had pictured myself. The only thing that through me off was Nudge. She was beautiful. I wondered how different she was now then she was three days ago. Her skin was definitely paler than when I had seen her hand against a white cliff at the South Pole. But I could also see the pain she was in; her eyes were closed tightly and her hands were in fists by her sides. She was biting down hard on her lip; it looked as if to keep from screaming aloud. No matter how bad this sight was though, I was sighting it – er, seeing it. Hey you're aloud to have bad grammar in your thoughts, aren't you?

Nudge POV

I tried again to search for my last memory, some logical reason for all this pain. The last thing I remember happening was falling. Unfortunately there was only one conclusion my sluggish brain could give for this flaming torture being the result of my fall. I had died, and I doubt this was heaven.

Every day of my whole life I had spent just trying to keep me and my family alive. After all the miserable things that had happened to me, and all the good I had tried to make out of them, why had I still ended up here? This wasn't fair. Max had told me "life isn't fair" hundreds of times, but I guess death wasn't either.

But I couldn't be dead! There were things around me. I felt a couch, or something, beneath me, although I had trouble processing even that through the pain. I was pretty sure I had my eyes shut, and I was keeping them that way. Years of experience told me to do anything to keep from shouting out; I would never give whoever was doing this to me the satisfaction of my screams.

After seconds or eternities the pain started to ebb the tiniest bit. But just that little bit allowed me a way to fight through the pain. I struggled, my entire body feeling like it was undergoing one of Max's brain attacks. Finally I broke through an invisible blockage, and I was just that more aware of my senses. I could hear a voice, not like Max's 'voice' though, because this one I recognized.

"She can hear us now," Angels little girl voice said above me. There were now three different possibilities I could come up with for what was happening.

A: My life was flashing before my eyes, but because I was keeping my eyes closed, I could only hear it.

B: I was at the school, and they really did have one of those thought-putter-inner thingies.

C: I had gone officially insane.

Then I heard Max start talking. "Nudge, I know you can hear me, and I am so sorry about what you are going through. You probably want to know what is going on though. We had to take you to a hospital after you fell. It turns out we're not the only weird creatures around. The doctor was a vampire, and the only way to save you was to have you become a vampire too."

I was starting to lean towards option C.


	8. The case of the exploding pants

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while, my editor and I have been arguing over various points in the story. Too bad for her, I'm the only one that knows my fanfic account's password. **

**If you can raed tihs tahn you are cnltareiy srmat eugnoh to konw taht I'm not Jmaes Psteotran or Spnehitae Meeyr.**

CHAPTER 8

Nudge POV

I heard girlish laughter above me. "She thinks she's crazy" Angel stated between snickers. I then heard some other people give a few nervous, half-hearted laughs. Could it be the rest of the flock? It sounded like it, but there were other laughs too. They sounded like they belonged to angels. Not six-year-old-mind-reader-and-controler-breather-under-water-talks-to-fish-shapshifter Angels; just normal ones.

"Well, she is still the same Nudge Channel we all know and love." I heard Angel say above me. Wait a minute. Hey, that was sarcasm! 'Oh when I get out of this fiery torture, you better start running, you little mind reader' I thought loudly.

"Which one?" I heard one of the angels ask; one of those lucky, no good angels that probably didn't even know how lucky he was that he wasn't being burned alive too. Oh! Oh there's a word for that! Uhhhhh… come on, think! It means something like unearned good luck, sounds like savin' dippy or something like that! Gah! What_ is _it!

"Serendipity?" The angel answered, and I could practically hear everyone else's curiosity. Except Angel's, who, of course, knew what was going on and was laughing her head off. Wait a minute. Angel knows. So does the angel. Angel knows because she can read minds. The angel knows because….?

"My name is Edward, and yes I can read minds, no I'm not an angel. You are not crazy, we are vampires, you are being turned into one of us too, and you are not dead. It hurts because it just hurts to turn into a vampire. You are currently lying on the couch, in my house, and I don't have any clue how to convince you any more than this until you wake u-." I heard something that sounded like a rock hitting a boulder, and the "vampire" stopped ranting.

"Everything he said was true, Nudge. I'm sorry about all of this, and if there is any way we can tell you that you're a vampire that you'd believe us, just let us know." Iggy said quietly from somewhere to my right. Could there actually be a chance of there being _vampires_? It seemed beyond unlikely, but as Fang had put on his blog, 'when you've got wings anything is possible.'

A week later.

Bella POV

I laid my head carefully down on the grass while still trying to keep an eye on Edward, Jacob and Renesme. If my little girl wasn't so bullet proof I'd be worried she'd get hurt. But I trusted the flock, even if they didn't trust me. I looked up again at my daughter, flying safely in Iggy's arms. Both of them had wanted to see what the world looked like from up so high. Nudge was now able to stay up there with the others, her pale wings glittering. I could tell she was still having trouble, but her friends were doing everything in their power to help her. Everyone except Rosalie was doing all they could. Even Jake was; he had gotten over hating her when he discovered that Nudge spoke "car" too.

The first day Nudge woke up was awful. It had taken her five days to fully transform, and when she was finished she was really hungry. Alice and Jasper took her hunting, but they said it was hard. Every few minutes she would beg again to see her flock. The flock had been just as desperate to see her. It was hard to keep them separate, but Nudge wasn't strong enough to face them until yesterday. She had been with them ever since, but not without a vampire guard present, and she never got within five feet of any of them.

According to her friends, she was practically the same as she had always been. Very, very talkative. Constantly. And her old powers had gotten stronger. Yesterday I found her lying on the living room floor, waving her hand back and forth as she watched our bronze chandelier sway with her hand's motion.

A 'thud' to my left pulled me out of my flashback. Iggy and Renesme were both grinning. It had been amazing experience for both of them. He handed her back to me, thanked me, and jumped back up into the sky.

Sometime later

Alice POV

"You know, red just isn't you color… Maybe a dark blue, possibly cobalt or cerulean? Yes, that would be better," I said, more to myself then to Nudge, as I ran back and forth across my room, comparing different outfits to her. I was having trouble with her makeover; I mean the hair was easy, but no clothes seemed quite right.

"It was good you found the Cullens. You seem happy here, and you deserve it. I mean, your child hood wasn't exactly terrific. You grew up in an insane asylum?" Nudge asked from under a pile of rejected clothes.

"How did you know that?" Who had told her?

She looked back at me sort of sheepishly. "I'm sorry I was just curious. I only took a little look, but it was so interesting, I couldn't help it. I mean, your own parents turned you in? How could they do that? That's, like as bad as Angel and Gazzy's parents. It's creepy how your visions came true before you were even a vampire. I mean, it must have been weird for a normal human to be telling her parents about who was going to win an election that wouldn't even take place in their life time…" She trailed off as she noticed my gaping expression.

"What?" she asked innocently. I stared back at her in shock.

"How did you know all that?!?!"

"Well I felt it…"

"What?"

"I felt it, can't you?" The little winged 15 year old gave me a confused look, which I was sure I was returning.

"You know, feel the past," she continued "like the day before I came to your house, you and Rosalie had gone on a mega shopping trip and at one store had both wanted the same hat and, it like, took seventeen police men to get things straightened out." I gawked at her again. Rose and I had sworn that to secrecy.

"You… can see the past?" I asked, my brain still processing.

"No one else can?" She clarified. Then she started hopping up and down, grinning.

"GUYS, GUYS I GOT A NEW POWER! HERE, JUST TELL ME WHERE AND WHEN WAS THE MOST EMBARESSING DAY OF YOUR LIFE WAS, AND I'LL SHOW YA!" She ran tearing out of the room to find her friends, leaving me sitting on the bed, dumbfounded.

Gazzy POV

"GUYS, GUYS I GOT A NEW POWER! HERE, JUST TELL ME WHERE AND WHEN WAS THE MOST EMBARESSING DAY OF YOUR LIFE WAS, AND I'LL SHOW YA!" Nudge shouted as she ran towards where the flock and I were sitting in the middle of the living room. She got a new power? LUCKY! She was jumping up and down in front of us grinning. Despite her innocent look, I knew better than to actually tell her the most embarrassing day of life. I shuddered as I remembered that summer last year, at the Oak Ridge Middle school in Utah.

Suddenly I noticed Angel. The amazed look she was giving Nudge was normal, considering she had already figured out her new power from her thoughts. But that evil look she was sending at me was NOT a good sign.

"Nudge, what happened last summer, at the Oak Ridge school in Utah, with Gazzy?" My sister THE LATE asked. Oh god, there was no way that this was going to end well. If I didn't die from embarrassment Max was going to kill me. Actually, even if I did die, she was probably going to resurrect me so she could kill me again.

Nudge burst out laughing, and all of the flock eyed us curiously.

"Okay so Gazzy and Iggy were on that one school's playground, they had ditched you guys earlier. They had some new bomb / stink bomb combo and decided that school was the place to test it. So Gazzy had snuck in and positioned some in the teachers' lounge, and other assorted places across the school. So he was in the middle of the playground with Iggy, blending with the other kids, and he pressed the detonate button…" Nudge was by now laughing so hard that she couldn't talk. And you know something is major if it can keep Nudge from talking. Maybe she would laugh so hard that she would forget what she was going to say. Except she could probably just look at the past from before she started telling the story, to see what she had been talking about. This power was nearly as bad as Angel's mind reading.

Nudge seemed to get her breath back and unfortunately continued, still giggling a bit.

"So-so he hit the button, and well – he forgot about one of bombs, and it was still in his back pocket. And his pants EXPLODED! I mean, BOOM! A-and so he was, like, standing there, in the middle of a school playground, with tons of kids around him, right after his pants exploded!" All the flock was laughing and staring at me. It appeared, though, that the only thing that kept Max from strangling me was her in ability to breathe properly. It felt like I was melting into my shoes. I had been so careful to not think about that incident around Angel, and had made Iggy swear not to tell anyone or think about it.

Max stood, trying to choke down her giggles, and glared at me.

"You put bombs in a school?" She hissed angrily at Iggy and I.

"So, Nudge, how did you know all that?" I hurriedly changed the subject.

She put her finger on her chin and her brow furrowed as she tried to think of how to explain. "It's kind of like the past is a library, and every person, thing, and place is a book, and days are pages. I can flip back through the pages of someone or something's book, and stop flipping if I see something interesting, or if I know what page, day, I'm looking for I can flip right to it. But I can also look to see when two pages of a book are identical, or when their pasts cross." Nudge rambled happily. Max now seemed too interested in Nudge's power to remember about the whole bomb, school, ka-blewy thing. Suddenly I noticed a lack of noise.

Looking up, I saw Nudge gaping openmouthed at Max… then Fang… then back again.

"So that's what you guys weren't thinking about!" Angel shouted. Iggy and I exchanged a confused glance. Everybody else knew something we didn't.

"What happened?" I asked the room in general. Nudge and Angel suddenly burst out laughing, and Max and Fang groaned. The only intelligible word I could hear between the chuckling as 'valium', whatever that meant.

"What's valium?" Iggy asked, right before I was about to. Suddenly Max was going to cook dinner, Angel was going to ask Alice something, Nudge was going to play with Renesme, and Fang was going for a flight.

I turned to Iggy. "Well at least Nudge didn't tell them what else we put in the teachers' lounge."

**A big thank you to all of those who reviewed! I'd like to reply to a few here…**

**Black burning heart66 – That is the exact same rant editor is giving me, I know what you mean, and I have been thinking about it.**

**Apprentice writer – I like you idea, and it works too, but I didn't want to copy Kate.**

**lys phillips – If only more people could review like you. I love instructive criticism, how would I know I did something wrong if nobody told me? I realize my POV switching was just as bad in this chapter, but I will try to cut down. But to me the reason why Maximum Ride and Twilight are such great books is because every character's POV is valid, and I like to emphasize the different perspectives. I just have trouble with 3****rd**** person. I have no excuse for your second point, but as for your 3****rd****, there was a reason behind my writing. As Angel can only hear snippets of what vampires are thinking, she also has trouble controlling their minds. Not to mention, having someone mind control you doesn't make a very good first impression. And**

**goldenrose37 – I took your review into account for this chapter, thank you.**

**praypray – you have been great about reviewing, and as seen above, I did use your idea. You have no idea how perfectly that power fit into the story.**

**Eta Carinae 1 - ty for the kind review. I like your idea, but I have seen it done before in other stories, and I don't want to copy. **

**auroraflight – I like your idea too, and I was considering it for a while, but I have seen it done before, and again, don't want to copy.**

**I'm**

**Now, here's the deal with reviewing. Every time you send in a review, fanfiction sends me an alert E-mail. Every time I see I have gotten mail from , I am reminded to write some more of the next chapter. Bottom line: more reviews = more chapter.**


	9. Stories

CHAPTER 9

Nudge POV

Although I had said I was going to play with Renesme, I needed to have some time to play with my power. I flew out to a large tree that over looked the river in the Cullen's back yard. I had spent a lot of time here before I was strong enough to talk to my friends.

I reached back into the depths of my mind, and quickly found what I was looking for. Pulling open Angel's past, I began scanning backwards, searching for the last time she was with her parents. She was only two months old when she was given up. Her mother didn't even seem concerned, she and Angel's father had just taken the money and left, never looking back. Max had been a better mother for Angel than her real parents would have.

I needed to try again, another flock member. One of them had to have a happy story. We now already knew Angel, Gazzy, Max, and Iggy's past. Next Fang. I had tried looking at his past earlier; that was when I ran across the whole valium and cave thing. I shuddered, and decided to work backwards – or forwards – and start at page one of his past. Awwww, he was cute as a baby, and his mom looked nice. Hmm, apparently she did know he lived, unlike what Angel had heard. But she never saw him. Apparently she had known she wouldn't be able to raise him properly, and had put him up for adoption. She had decided she didn't want to see him. She thought it might make it harder to let him go. It was probably a good thing she didn't look, too. She may have noticed the wings.

Searching even farther into the past, I discovered her name was Jennifer Charel. She was nice, like Max had thought she may be. Then I started scanning into her future. I had to fling my arms around the tree trunk to keep from falling. Shaking, I carefully I reread the past more slowly. She had decided she wanted to see Fang a few years later. She had tried to get the address, but couldn't find any. Getting suspicious, she had done some research, and when she found out about the school she understood even less. She had demanded to see Fang, but they wouldn't let her. And she was going to take action. So the school killed her. Her book ended at chapter 20.

By now I was hyperventilating, my fingers digging marks into the tree. The school had taken away everything from all of them. Iggy's parent's would have never had a story to sell if the school hadn't given Iggy the story of a freak, Fang would have had mom if the school hadn't killed her, Max would have had a perfect childhood if it hadn't been taken away, and Angel and Gazzy's parent wouldn't have had a place to sell them, so maybe they would have raised them and loved them. What would I do? I couldn't tell this to them, it would break their hearts. But would it be any better to keep it a secret? My brain swirled away into thought, every idea contradicted by the next. Finally I couldn't take it; my head felt like it would burst. I threw open a random Cullen's book, desperate to escape from my reality to theirs.

Vampire's limbs were torn from one another, pieces strewn across a desolate plain. A large fire was burning brightly in the center of the fight, and occasionally an arm that was dragging itself towards its body would be thrown in. But the story focused on a single vampire, who I recognized as Jasper, looking just the same as he would over a century later. He was clearly the best fighter, and by the color of his eyes, the oldest. Most of the other vampires were only a little older than me, our eyes both nearly the same shade of burning scarlet. I winced as I "saw" Jasper's arm being torn off by another vampire. Another took advantage of his weakness, and tore off a hunk of his side. With his good hand he held his side on, and it mended. Managing to lose the two vamps' he found his arm in a pile of pieces and reapplied that too. Then he ran back into the war as if nothing had happened.

I pulled myself out of his past, breathing heavily. It was like I was reading a real book, like it was all an exciting story and not real. I was curious to read on. It took me only ten minutes to scan all of the Cullen's past, my improved brain being able to process years of their lives in seconds. None of the stories cheered me up though. One had accidently been turned into a creature his own father would have killed, one nearly died of the Spanish influenza, one's child died, then they attempted suicide, one was beaten, and had a the only future she wanted taken away from her to save her life, one was created to fight in a vampire war, and one was placed into an insane asylum by her own parents.

These weren't just interesting books, they were lives. Each story was a someone, or a something, and they had to be there for all of it. In the long scheme, I was just another book, and like every other, mine would have a beginning, pages, chapters, and an ending.

My story! I had read everyone else's, but had completely forgotten my own. Moving so fast that, had it been real, I would have ripped some pages clean out of the spine, I flipped to my first days. My parents were arguing over what to name me, but not really arguing just discussing. My mom looked like me, and had my curly hair. Mom (look, I'm already calling her 'mom'!) wanted to name me Monique, but my dad wanted to name me Aliza. They were still talking, and were starting to lean towards Monique, when a nurse came in, her expression as good as a neon 'bad news' sign on her forehead.

"I'm terribly sorry. I-I don't know what to say. She didn't make it. There was a heart problem, nothing could be done. I'm so sorry."

Mom had tears streaming down her face, and dad was comforting her, his eyes wet too. Now following the pages of their book, I skimmed through the next year. I saw the house when they returned home. They had covered it with baby stuff; there was a room I would have had, complete with crib and mobile, and they had the house toddler proofed, with little padded sticker things on the counter corners and safety things over the electrical outlets. The rare times they talked about me, they referred to me as Monique. It made them sad just to think about me though, they cried often. But after a year they started to get over it. Then after two years my mom had my brother. He lived. They named him Calvin. He had mom's dark hair, but otherwise looked like me. He got my mobile.

Three more years passed, and Calvin and I got a sister. They thought about giving her the name Monique. I hate to say it, but I was happy to see my mom burst into tears at the name. She had really loved me, like a mom. They ended up naming her Aliza. And they were all alive now, and happy. I was in the past. Calvin was in 8th grade, and flunking science. Aliza was ten. She looked just like I did five years ago, minus the wings.

I was crazy jealous. They got my life. Instead of that frilly pink crib, I had gotten a dog crate.

What could I tell the flock about all of this? 'Oh, I'm sorry, your parents are all dead or jerks, but I've got wonderful parents and two nice siblings.' Although it wasn't exactly like that. So what if I had the greatest parents in the entire world? I was a mutant vampire. Not exactly the cute little daughter they always wanted. Besides, I couldn't control myself enough to be near them, I was barely able to handle the flock, and they didn't contain 100% human blood.

An idea / question sprung to mind, and I quickly flipped to page one of my past. My real birthday was in two days. Smiling, I tried to hold onto that one happy thought, and let everything else that had happened in the past 15 minutes slide away.

Jasper POV

I held my head and groaned, glad vampires couldn't get headaches. Nudge's emotions were going haywire, switching from excited to angry to defensive to hopeful to happy to sad to furious to defiant to a little bit insane to scared to curious…. And it went on and on. And on. After about five more minutes, the change abruptly stopped, and settled on happy. Then I noticed the emotion in the living room; Edward changing from reflecting Nudge's emotion to… Mischievous?

"Wha-?" I was asking, but was interrupted by Angel running into the room.

"Did you just sa- think that Nudge's real B-days in two days? Your right, we need to celebrate. I've got to go tell the flock! We need presents!" And she was out of the room again.

"It's been a really weird two weeks," Edward sighed.

I nodded in agreement, then winced visibly as every emotion in the house switched to excited.

"It may get weirder."


	10. Volcano Party

**Thank you for all the wonderful reviews folks! I am sooooooo sorry about how terrible an updater I am. But hey, after this there is only one chapter left! Read, enjoy, and review!**

**If I was Stephanie Meyer or James Patterson I would have enough money to bribe the Fan Fiction site to let me change text colors.**

CHAPTER 10

Max POV

"Okay folks, this is a hazardous mission, but we also have to move fast. And although I hate to split up, we will cover more ground that way. Angel and I will head north, Gazzy and Iggy will head east and Fang will head north east. Everybody stay on your toes, and be ready for anything. If you find something, or get in trouble, call me." With that I handed them each a little cell phone the Cullens had loaned us.

"In an hour we meet back here, so stay on mission and run like the wind. Any questions?" I pointed towards Angel, who had her hand raised, "yes?"

"Can we have some extra money so we can get one of those Auntie Em's pretzels?" She asked innocently. Grudgingly, I handed her a wad of cash.

"Ready?" I confirmed one more time, then after receiving a nod from everyone, I headed deeper into _**the mall…**_

"Please Max?"

"No."

"PLEEEEEEAASE?"

"Nope."

"But Celeste gets lonely!"

"Sweetie, there is no power on earth that will get me into Build-A-Bear Workshop."

"Pl-?"

"I'm sorry but the answer is still no. We are looking for a present for Nudge. How bout we try that Kohl's?" I looked to Angel for conformation, and she nodded in agreement.

The little store was filled with all kinds of weird things – none of which I could ever see Nudge needing. They had all sorts of hair trinkets, jewelry, nail polish, and what appeared to be colored glitter you were supposed to put on your eyelids. I picked up a jar of purple nail paint and took a closer look; I had never actually used the stuff before.

"Do you think Nudge would like this?" I held the jar out in front of Angel.

"Oh my gosh! That's perfect!" She exclaimed.

"Really?" I thought it had been an OK idea, but not 'perfect.'

"Not you." Angel shot me an irritated look. "The lady two stores over is looking at something perfect for Nudge. Come on!" Excitedly she dragged me by the wrist out of the store, and into another one.

Fifty-five minutes after the group split up, Angel and I made it back to the decorative one-story candy cane that marked where we had started, I with the present, and Angel with her pretzel. After five more minutes Fang showed up with two bags, one with a large cardboard box in it, and the other with a few small boxes. We waited another five minutes. Then another five minutes. Where were Iggy and Gazzy?

Fang POV

What do you get a vampire for her sixteenth birthday? What do you get Nudge for her birthday? The two questions didn't seem like one. The new creature that looked like Nudge was different. Nobody seemed to see it but me. They were so busy being happy she was alive that they couldn't see what had died. Did they realize that we would get old, and Nudge would be the way she is forever?

I knew what I would get Nudge for her birthday, but would the new creature like it?

I walked lazily into two different stores, buying what I would need for Nudge's present. As I exited something landed on my shoulder. Was that confetti? I flicked the star shaped piece of plastic off and kept walking, absent mindedly looking at all the front window displays.

One thing caught my eye. It was a Mickey Mouse alarm clock. Without thinking I walked into the store and bought it.

I continued exploring the mall. Like Max, I had always hated crowded areas. Anyone could be an eraser. There were even cops running around.

Eventually I moseyed my way back to where I had started. Max and Angel were already waiting for me.

Gazzy POV

"Ready?" Max confirmed, then after a group nod, Iggy and I turned and started walking away. I held back what would have been the best evil laugh in the HISTOOORRRY of evil laughs.

Iggy and I had been preparing for this moment for _**24**_ _hours_. I know that doesn't seem like much, but in impatient teen age mutant ninja bird time, that's centuries.

Iggy pulled a scintillating credit card out of his pocket and held it out as if it were the holy hand grenade. Emmet had overheard our planning and had decided to sponsor us. With money to burn, our plans had gotten even more wow worthy.

Iggy and The Card took off to get two extension cords, a radio, some music, an amp, some confetti, balloons, a hula hoop, and streamers. I sauntered off in the other direction. A few yards away was a sort of inflatable person. There was a big fan blowing upwards that kept a cloth tube with arms and a head vertical.

When nobody was looking I unplugged the fan and the blue one story tall person fell to the ground. I carefully cut the person in half, so that if I was to turn the fan back the remaining part of the tube would stand strait up. This was a fairly desolate part of the small Forks mall, so no one noticed me drag the fan and the remainder of the person into a staff bathroom.

There I set to work with a hot glue gun, carefully making the opening at the top of the tube smaller. Next I took a giant Ziploc bag and cut the bottom off of it. I cut a hole about the same size as the opening in the Ziploc in the remains of the fan person, and then hot glued the two holes together. Now if you put something inside the bag it would be blown strait up through the tube and into the air,

I hid the entire thing inside a large Old Navy bag, and brought it over to the kiddies' play area.

The main attraction for the kids was a big padded thing in the shape of a volcano. On the outside stairs led up to the top so that the kids could use the slide that wound around it. Little tunnels led to the inside where there was a room full of games. If a kid inside the volcano was to look straight up, they would see a two foot hole that allowed light to get in.

Iggy ran over to me carrying the supplies. I took the hula hoop from him and tied the ends of the Old Navy bag to it. Next filled the Ziploc bag with confetti and turned the fan on. Since it wasn't plugged in, nothing happened. None of the adults seemed to notice, but the kids were eying me wearily.

I placed the hula hoop over the hole in the top of the volcano, and positioned the fan so inside the Old Navy bag it was pointing straight up. I taped a few pieces of streamer to the end of the tube, then dropped the unplugged end of the extension cord through the hole into the play room. I would plug the fan in later.

Iggy had already set up and plugged in the radio and amp. Both were hidden inside the play room so no one would find them. All that was needed was to hit play, and heavy metal would come blasting out.

For the last step we needed a diversion. Iggy took a little device out of his pocket and handed me the bag of rubber balloons. I went up to the top of the volcano to wait. Iggy let one evil lopsided grin through as he dramatically pushed the button.

Parent POV

I sat on one of those green plastic benches that seem to be a universal mall fixture and stared at the opening in the volcano that my Connor crawled through. Suddenly a painfully annoying sound hit me. It was a dozen ringtones all going off at once. I whipped out my cell phone and my eyes widened as I leapt to my feet and stared at the screen. _What the heck? _I looked over at every other mom. All their faces said exactly what I felt. _What the heck?_ Slowly I looked to the mom on my left. We communicated telepathically as only mothers can. _**What the heck?**_ I stared at my screen and at the two words that had been texted to me: _Party time._

Gazzy POV

While the parents tried to sort out what was going on, I flew up to the lights above and stretched balloons over them, causing red, blue, and yellow light to fill the play area.

In the same moment that I hit the ground, Iggy turned on the radio and plugged in the fan. Loud music filled the room and confetti came flying down around us. We slapped high fives and then ran like the wind, heading towards the closest store and away from the delighted shouts of many a four year old.

Since we had already used Emmet's credit card to have Nudge's present shipped to the house there was nothing left to do. The only fun part was when the police chased around for a bit. It seemed they suspected us of causing a disturbance in the mall. An hour and a half after we left the giant candy cane we made our way to the meeting spot. Would you believe Max did not welcome us back with open arms? Who da' thunk?

**Yo. This is the editor speaking, you know 1undercover. Anywho. I just want to let you know that I am resigning from this story RIGHT NOW. (FYI it's because of the idea for the ending) IK IK it doesn't really bode well for you guys but tape it up and play on it as my father is always saying. P.S. Regardless keep reading cause if you don't it'll haunt you in your dreams. (And it might anyway)**

**Back to author - Please ignore everything in the above comment except for the keep reading thing. That was good advice, cuz the next chapter is going to be the last, and is going to be awesome. Thank you for reading, and I hope to be able to complete this story within a week. And as always, **_**please**_** tell me what you think! What POV should I use in the next chapter?**


	11. Surprise

CHAPTER 11

Max POV

As soon as I opened the Cullen's front door a white blur went streaking past me, then came back inside as a clearly visible Alice dragging Gazzy behind her.

"No, NO! Please don't, _please_! I beg of you, have mercy! NOOOoooooo…." Gazzy was pulled out of sight and his scream reverberated around the room. I turned to Bella, who was sitting on the couch with Nudge and watching the whole scene with bemusement.

"What was that all about?" I asked, and Bella chuckled.

"Alice is giving him a haircut. Vampire hair doesn't grow very fast, and she loves working with scissors."

Nudge tapped Bella on the shoulder.

"How about George?" She asked impatiently. Bella shook her head.

"Luke?"

"Nope."

"Jonathan?"

"No."

"Jeremy?"

"Not even close." Bella smirked and Nudge let out an exasperated sigh.

"My power doesn't work on her." The almost birthday girl complained to me. "I can't see her past, and she is making me _guess_ things about her piece by piece." She turned back to Bella.

"Please give me a hint. What letter does your dad's name begin with?"

"C."

"Connor?"

"Nope."

"Of course."

Angel and I watched the two progress for a little while. Fang had snuck upstairs, and Angel had forwarded his thoughts to me, which explained that he had some work to do on Nudge's present. We were trying to keep the fact that we knew about her birthday a secret. She hadn't told us it yet, and her party was tomorrow.

Iggy had taken Renesme outside with him, and after a minute Angel and I headed to the kitchen to make the chocolate chip cookies I had promised her. By the time we had finished eating the entire batch Alice had trimmed Gazzy's hair so that it no longer covered his eyes. I had been beginning to think that he might start believing the top half of the world was always yellow.

Alice tried to persuade me to let her fish tail braid my hair. Why anyone would want fish tails – or any other part of a fish, for that matter – in their hair was beyond me. I managed to get out of it by volunteering Angel to take my place.

Gazzy had abandoned the kitchen when he learned about the lack of uneaten cookies, so I went into the living room in search of him. Nudge and Bella were still talking, and Edward and Jasper were now occupying two arm chairs by the wall of windows. Jasper was reading, and Edward was staring at him as if he was wearing a dress. According to the mind reader's expression, something wasn't right.

And the "wasn't right" was sitting behind Jasper's chair with his fist shoved in his mouth to keep from laughing aloud. I noticed Edward's eyes bug out and his mouth harden into a line in surprise. At the same time Gazzy let a barely audible giggle escape. It was enough for the vampire to hear.

"You!" Edward shouted, causing Jasper and Gazzy to do their person-who-sat-on-a-porcupine impression. I won't bore you with the cartoonish chase scene that followed, but from the shouting I was able to sort of piece together what happened.

Angel hears thoughts by directing her conciseness at a person. Edward bases his on recognizing the different sounds of people's thought voices. Like Gazzy can mimic a voice, he can also imitate a thought voice. He claimed he had always been able to do it, but it hadn't been much use until now.

I didn't completely catch what Gazzy tricked Edward into thinking Jasper thought, but I heard the words "fluffy pink boa", "miniature schnauzer", and "Rommel" repeated over and over.

I roughly grabbed The Gasman by the arm and led him upstairs, away from the dispute. Just to add to the illusion that I didn't find his prank hilarious I gave him the "don't you know you shouldn't fake an empathetic's thoughts to trick a mind reading vampire" lecture. I am sure you have all heard that one before.

When we reached Edward's old bedroom I was surprised not to see Fang there. His present to Nudge currently appeared to be a mound of dirt, a plexi glass sheet, some solder, and a large bucket, so I assumed he hadn't finished. I retrieved my present to Nudge out of a plastic bag and showed it to Gazzy. He apparently couldn't wrap his so he helped me with mine.

I reached into another bag from the mall in search of wrapping paper. Instead I found what appeared to be… a Mickey Mouse alarm clock? It was just like the one I had had back in Colorado.

I held it up so Gazzy could see it.

"Did you and Ig buy this?" I asked, and he shook his head. "It must have been Fang then", I mumbled under my breath. I raised my voice so Gazzy could hear. "Do you think Fang got this for Nudge?" I caught a hint of jealousy in my voice and stifled it.

Gazzy rolled his eyes. "Of course he got it for you."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Why would he do that? It's not my birthday."

Gazzy let out an exasperated sigh. "Hmm. Let me think. How many girls has Fang had a total crush on for, like, _five_ years?" He dramatically swiveled his blue eyes around to stare at me. I gawked.

"Fang does _**not**_ have a crush on me! He gave up after that time he tried to kiss me at the dock."

It was Gazzy's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Right?" I asked pleadingly.

Gazzy smirked.

"Right?" I said again, though I already knew the answer. It didn't seem to surprise me; I guess I always knew he still liked me. He had just stopped trying. I hit my forehead with my palm, then ran my fingers through my hair. "I am such a moron." I muttered to myself. Trough the hair that had fallen in front of my face I saw Gazzy's eyebrows raise and his grin broaden.

"You like him too, don't you?" He said, his voice somewhere between curiosity and smugness.

To my complete dismay my heart started to do a little pitter patter thing that could not be healthy, and I felt my face burn as if I had been in the sun too long. Gazzy started singing "Max and Fang, sittin' in a tree" under his breath, which sent me over the edge.

I tackled Gazzy and pinned his shoulders to the ground with my forearm. I put on an expression that could only be described as "terrifying" and leaned close to him, growling, "I do NOT like fang." He started snickering.

"Suuuure," he said in a patronizing tone, and I did a sort of girly shriek thing. For those of you who have younger brothers, you have my sympathy. But at least yours can't mimic voices.

"Oh Max," Gazzy mocked in Fang's voice, "I love you sooooo much!"

He switched to my voice "Fang, I am totally in love with you, but I like playing with your emotions so much more."

I sighed in defeat, and raised a hand to stop him from continuing. "Fine. I like Fang. But it doesn't change anything. We can't like _date," _I said the word like it was all the profanities combined, "it would just be weird, we have been like siblings for so long."

Gazzy grinned. "You liiiiiiiiiike Fang!"

With one hand I grabbed him by the neck, and he made a satisfying choking sound. "Tell anyone and the next thing you will be saying is 'Max, I didn't know you could hang someone by a noose made from their own leg.'"

He spluttered something unintelligible and nodded. I let him up and he backed slowly out of the room.

I sighed and picked up Nudge's finished present and set it down on Edward's sofa. We wouldn't need it until tomorrow.

I dropped the present and it hovered in mid air. I tried to shove it down, but it wouldn't move. It was suspended about a foot above the couch. I carefully touched the air beneath it and it was stiff. I brought my arm back and jabbed the space below the present. Fang suddenly appeared, rubbing his knee where I had poked him.

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

"Yes, I was there the whole time." He let out a lopsided grin.

I tried to speak, and was again interrupted.

"Yes, I heard everything you said."

I sat down next to him and pinched the bridge of my nose in annoyance at myself.

"Gazzy was right." He slouched down so he would be at my eye level. Despite my better judgment I looked up at him and smiled a little. Then I picked up the golden pillow next to me and socked him over the head with it.

Of course he picked up another pillow and clocked my upside the chin.

Four Hours Later

Nudge's POV

Something strange was going on….

Rosalie was being nice to me.

"Want more popcorn?" The Barbie with fangs asked politely. Of course we couldn't eat the stuff, but we liked the smell.

"I'm fine," I replied, leaning back into the lumpy sofa in Bella and Edward's house, and glancing back at the TV. Bella, Alice, and Rose had found out that being on the run from evil scientists for most my life had left me with a poor education of classic movies.

In the last three hours we had watched all of The Lord of The Rings, and we had just moved onto The Princess Bride. Of course we watched on super, super, super fast forward mode.

I heard footsteps in the distance, and a second later Bella was in the doorway.

"Hey Rosalie, um, Alice would like your help with, uh, um, cleaning. Yeah, she is cleaning the house and would like your opinion on her cleaning." Bella said with much stuttering.

For a minute Rosalie just glared at her, one eyebrow cocked, and then a light bulb seemed to go on. "Ah, yes. The cleaning, I'll go help."

"Could I help too?" I asked with uncharacteristic politeness and briefness. Honestly, Rosalie tended to scare courtesy into me. Bella quickly claimed that it was much more mandatory for me to be watching TV. What was going on? I tried to follow Bella's past, but her book had unbreakable chains wrapped around it. Instead I tried Alice's.

It took me a second to see everything she had done in the past three hours. Another second passed before I realized that the entire flock's activities had also followed the same general theme: they were preparing for a party. One more second left me wondering how they had known about my birthday.

Four seconds was all it took for the ent**i**re secret to be blown.

"Alice is _what_!?" I shrieked. Bella closed her eyes and groaned in defeat.

"Well, we tried." Rosalie said lazily, throwing herself onto the couch, and focusing on The Princess Bride.

"Please don't focus on what they are doing. It was meant to be a surprise, just wait till morning; your friends need to sleep." Bella looked at me in earnest, and I stared back in horror. _Waiting_?!?!?! But, they were birthday decorating for me! How could I stay away? Certainly Alice would understand THAT!

"How could you?!?!?!?" I shouted at Bella. Didn't she know I had the patience of kumquat? Bella looked affronted at my sudden outburst.

"Nudge, Nudge, Nudge! Calm down! Here, Lets…play some board games. Yeah, we've got board games coming out of our ears," she rushed to stop my mini vampire panic attack. I say mini only because I didn't have to breathe into a paper bag. I raised my eyebrow at her. "Emmett," she said in explanation.

And so that is where the board game competition of a century began.

We each had a set of chess pieces, and you began with moving a pawn around a monopoly board. If someone landed on the space you were on they took your piece, and you would have to replace it with another one in your pile. If your king is taken you lose.

When you pass go you get 200 dollars (apparently Emmett had made the monopoly money into a suit for Halloween, so we played with real bills) and you get two scrabble chips. You earn a property when you have the scrabble pieces to spell out its name.

If you land on community chest or chance you draw from a pile of Uno and normal cards. If you draw a normal card, you draw that many chips from the bag; if you got an Uno card, you put that many chips into the bag. In honor of my birthday we started with sixteen chips.

If you land on someone's property not only do you have to pay them the money, but if it was a monopoly you had to also pay a chip for each house. It was against the rules to feel the scrabble pieces to tell what letter they are.

You win when everyone else runs out of money or loses all their chess pieces. Would you believe that Alice had three monopolies within five minutes? Yeah, so did I.

The game lasted until around 7:00 AM, in the end Rosalie, who had been the banker, won. Don't ask. After another hour of painstaking waiting, Bella led me into the big house blindfolded. I could hear breathing all around me, the pulsing of blood. I was still a newborn, and I was glad Bella had a restraining hand on my shoulder.

"Go ahead!" Angel said excitedly, and I heard a faint sound, hair hitting skin. Someone was nodding.

"Here we go." Alice said from surprisingly close, and I heard a footstep before I felt the blindfold coming off. I was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

The cloth fell away, and the first thing I saw was Iggy holding a ginormo cake. My eyes focused quickly, and I saw the rest of the flock standing with the vampires. Max was front and center, Renesme on her shoulders. Gazzy was next to Iggy, in position to catch the cake in case Iggy dropped it. Edward was next to Bella, both standing by Max incase she dropped Nessie.

Rose and Emmett were to my left, Jasper by them and Alice next to me. Fang, Angel, Esme, and Carlisle were off to the right. They were all wearing those tacky party hats, and watching my expression expectantly. And then I noticed the house.

The place was covered with balloons. Surprisingly, it didn't look tacky. They varied from a light cream to a rich silver, and were as small a marble, to as big as a watermelon. They were taped to the walls to make spirals and loops, arcs and waves. Silver embroidery strung lightly around the top of the walls, and was spun over the surface of the ceiling.

The cake was obviously using the same theme, covered in finely rolled fondant lines and blown spheres of sugar.I didn't have to pretend to be surprised.

The next hour was filled with much off key singing, cake eating (for the flock and Nessie), and Alice chasing Gazzy around the house after she discovered he had been throwing darts at the balloons. Then it was finally time for presents.

First was the gift from Max and Angel. They instructed me to rip off the paper, but wait before opening the box. I obediently closed my eyes and held out my hand and something rough and hard dropped into my palm. It felt so heavy, but in reality if hardly weighed a thing, especially with vampire strength. There was just so much past around it.

"It's an ammonite fossil." Angel told me happily. I opened my eyes, and sure enough, I was holding what looked like a spiral shaped rock. I pressed it between my palms, and felt its story sitting there, like a huge encyclopedia.

"Thank you!" I hugged Max and Angel, Alice placing a warning hand on my arm. It was almost painful to let them go, the smell of blood, although dulled by the bird DNA was still so tempting.

"Open ours next!" Gazzy shouted. Iggy glared at him, and then whispered something in his ear. I could have heard every word they were saying, but I chose to tune them out.

"Fine," Gazzy pouted, "Open the other's first." As if on cue Fang handed me a huge awkwardly wrapped present. I pulled the silver paper off, and was still confused. It appeared to be a large, shallow plastic box with a plexi glass sheet covering the top. In the bottom was a layer of fine, black dirt, and upon closer inspection of the plexi glass sheet, I realized there were small silver dots covering the bottom.

I pressed my hand to the top, and my fingers tingled, the way they did when I picked up something metal. I flexed my mind, not sure what it would do, and a layer of dirt rose off the bottom of the bucket and stuck to the underside of the plexi glass sheet.

When I pulled my arm back, the dirt continued to stick there, still in the shape of a hand. I traced my finger along the box's lid, writing out the words _Thank You_. Everywhere I touched, a bit of dirt would rise off the bottom and stick to the top.

"It's solder," Fang explained. "The silver dots are solder. You magnetize them, and iron sand sticks to them." I smiled, and put my hand back where I had it at first. Instead of pushing my power out, I brought it back in, and the black sand fell back down.

I walked over a few steps to hug Fang, and then thought better of it.

The Cullens handed me their small present, and I opened it to find a stack of cards. I had a driver's license for each age, starting at sixteen, and going up to thirty. There were other things too, an FBI card, a few ID cards with different names, and a membership to the local gardening club.

"NOW can she open ours?" Gazzy looked pleadingly up at Iggy.

"Ok." He replied, tossing me a wrapped present that fit in the palm of my hand. Eagerly, I ripped it open, and inside was the sweetest looking key anyone has ever seen. The metal went straight out from base in a burst of a silvery blue color. The foundation itself looked as if it had been made by stuffing liquid silver into a frosting bag and squeezing it out into squiggles.

"Whoa. Holy smokes! What does it go to? If it is half as cool as this key……. omg omg omg omg ahhhhh! Whatsitgoto? Do you think I could wear this key as a necklace without looking like a weirdo? Heck, I'm a VAMPIRE, that can FLY! Let them call me a weirdo!"

I suddenly realized I had been being led outside the entire time I was talking. In front of the house was a shiny motorcycle with a huge red bow on it. It was silvery blue like the key, and had the same drizzled silver affect. It looked very uncomfortable, but I didn't care anymore. The key fit perfectly.

I looked at Max, and noticed that her eyes were blazing.

"You got her a _motorcycle_?" She seethed at Iggy.

"Yeah those things are dangerous." Bella said, wearily.

Without hesitation, I jumped on, turned the key, and was off. I had read about these in Jeb's magazines way back when. They weren't exaggerating about how fast these went. I was almost halfway down the driveway before I heard Max shouting at me that I should wear a helmet.

I drove back without any hands, still a little scared of Max's horrified look, despite that I knew I could take her with one hand behind my back.

"Fine." Max said. "No one who isn't over sixteen is allowed to ride." She looked at the devastated Gazzy and indifferent Angel. "And I better not see anyone with a heartbeat not wearing a helmet."

Of course after the rules were established Max claimed she needed a turn, and Iggy magically pulled a helmet that matched the bike out from behind his back.

An hour later I was sitting on the front stoop, watching Max letting Gazzy have the turn on the bike he had been begging for for the past hour. Max drove in circles, and I swear there were tectonic plates movin' faster than her. Nessie, who was sitting on Alice's lap was laughing and cheering.

Iggy sat down next to me, and tapped me on the shoulder.

"Can I show you something?" He asked and I nodded. The motorcycle would be there tomorrow, and I was enjoying letting other people drive it.

He led me back through the house and out the door towards the woods. We both jumped into the air, and I followed him, not sure where he was going.

I have no idea how he did it, but he managed to land relatively gracefully on the branch of a large oak tree, and motion for me to join him.

I sat down and leaned my back against the trunk of the tree, not that it was more comfortable, it just seemed natural. Looking closer at my back rest; I noticed some odd dents. I focused, and reached back mentally, sifting through this tree's past for something unnatural. Huh, Iggy had been here before. And judging by the way he had been punching the tree, he hadn't been happy. I then carefully followed him back until I had found the cause of his tree abuse. It didn't take me long to detect the reason. So that's why the flock had been avoiding Jacob for a while.

Iggy tapped my shoulder, pulling me out of thought.

"I had made you something else for your birthday," he said in his usual quiet way. So is that why he had brought me out here? What could he be giving me that he wouldn't in front of the Cullens? Or was it the flock?

He took a copper colored chain from his pocket and handed it to me. I took it; eager, and looked closer at it. There was a little wooden charm hanging from it. On one side it was a fang and on the other it was a wing, the tip of the feathers meeting up with the point of the tooth. I could feel his past all around it; he must have carved it himself.

"I made it myself. Renesme helped me see what I was doing. The fang is supposed to represent you being a vampire, and the wing is for you being a part of the flock."

And suddenly everything clicked into place – why he had reacted so strongly when the flock thought I was going to die, why it was he who had never left me while I was changing, and why he had carved me a necklace. He loved me. And I guess I loved him.

I noticed then that we had inadvertently been leaning towards each other, but neither of us really minded. He put his hand on the back of my head and my heart swelled. And we leaned closer.

Then a new, different passion overtook me. The Nudge I had been a second ago disappeared, as the monster in me that had saved my life surfaced. The intoxicating smell coming off Iggy was too much, I couldn't resist. Pulled by an un-fightable force, I leaned even closer to him, my teeth biting down where the blood pulsed loudest in his neck.

~THE END~


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